PHOTO SHOP ANATO MY The Curves controls

Use these controls to bring your images to life

Tone Curve

Camera Raw has its own version of the Curves command: called the Tone Curve, it works in much the same way. Raw files are usually a little flat, so will often benefit from increased punch.

Neutral grey eyedropper

Grab the neutral grey eyedropper and click on a point in your image you know should be grey; then all the other colours will re-map around this new grey point.

The curve line

The diagonal line can be dragged up or down to lighten or darken the image. Each point you click creates an anchor. It’s important where you place a point, as this determines which part of the tonal range you wish to change. Towards the left will target shadow tones, and the right will change highlights.

Colour channels

An upwards drag on the red line adds red while down adds cyan; up on the blue channel adds blue, down adds yellow; up on the green line adds green, down adds magenta. Try dragging the very top or bottom of the channel lines to add subtle colour shifts to highlights and shadows.

S-curves

The S-shaped curve is a classic Curves technique for boosting contrast and colour saturation, lending much-needed punch to flat images. The more pronounced the S-shape is, the more the image will pop.

White and black points

Hold Alt and drag the White and Black point sliders, and your display will change to show clipped pixels as you drag. In general, it’s best to drag the black point inwards until you see a few black areas appear, and drag the white point inwards until the point just before pixels appear.